Chapter 18
18
A very stood in the dark of her barely-more-than-a-studio apartment above the café, her thumbnail gripped between her teeth, the other arm crossed tight over her middle, unable to believe she’d just undressed in front of him after he’d rejected her. And in hindsight, what she’d thought would feel playful and look sexy probably looked more like desperation.
She closed her eyes as another surge of embarrassment pumped through her, then lifted her hands to rub her burning cheeks. And as she stared out at the darkness, listening for Trace’s footsteps, she took consolation in the fact that no one knew how mortified she would feel if Trace walked out after that lame attempt at seduction.
He was right about cutting off their involvement now. She knew that. At least logically. Ending their intimate connection now while they could remain friends made a lot of sense. Especially when she knew cold turkey was going to throw her into withdrawal. Yet emotionally and physically, she both wanted and needed him so badly she ached. And there was just no reasoning with that kind of desire.
In the back of her mind, she realized her moments with him were dwindling, and she wanted to grab as much of him as she could, while she could.
His boots sounded on the hardwood, and her mind hyperfocused on the present. Within three steps, the thump faded, and she realized he was headed for the door.
Dammit. She squeezed her eyes closed, curled her hand into a fist, and pressed it against her forehead. The knife in her belly twisted, and her stomach burned. The snick of the front door’s dead bolt sliding home was the final blow. A blow that seemed to shift everything inside her.
A few soft thumps sounded near the porch, and Avery turned away from the window. She didn’t want to watch him leave. Logically, she knew this situation wasn’t anything like her marriage, knew he had good reason to leave. But having the man she wanted walk away from her still felt the same. It didn’t matter that he’d be back every day for several more days to install the equipment and complete the finish work. She had to accept that her mini-affair with Trace Hutton was over.
She pulled a T-shirt from a pile in the laundry basket she’d brought over earlier and tugged it over her head. As soon as she pushed her arms into the sleeves, she knew it was one Trace had left behind.
“Guess this is as close as I’m gonna get to having him in my bed tonight.”
Or ever again , whispered through her head.
Pacing across the room, she rested her back against the wall, wrapped her arms around herself, and stared at her bed with its crisp, new white sheets and white down comforter. The thought of sliding in and sleeping alone...
God, sometimes it felt like she’d spent her entire life alone. There might have been short spans of time when she’d felt connected and loved—like she had with David at seventeen, or with Trace when she was in his arms. But she was quickly realizing those short spurts weren’t enough to sustain her soul.
The room’s night chill spread across her skin, and Avery rubbed her arms. Maybe, after Trace was out of sight, she’d go back to Phoebe’s to sleep. Maybe it was too soon to think about living on her own. As much as she’d been looking forward to her own space, her own things, and her privacy, this all just felt too empty. And she’d already spent way too many nights of her life lonely.
The thought of dating other guys fluttered into her mind, and she realized that her desire for no strings would leave her in this position a lot—watching men leave, sleeping alone, living with loneliness.
The sound of soft footsteps on the stairs touched her ears. Her heart jumped and rattled. She turned her head just as he stopped in the open doorway and planted his hand on the frame.
The sight froze the breath in her lungs.
He came back? No one ever came back for her. Not her mother. Not Delaney. Not David.
In the shadows, it was hard to read his expression, but she felt the tension between them like a crackle in the air. He’d taken off his boots and socks and looked ridiculously relaxed and adorable and smokin’ hot in those worn jeans with his tousled hair, scruff, and bare feet.
“Does that offer still stand?” His voice was soft but thick and heavy with desire. “’Cause after that insanely hot display, I can’t make myself leave even though I know I should.”
Her excitement hit a wall, crashed, and burned. He’d come back for exactly what she’d promised him: no-strings sex. And ten minutes ago, that would have been enough. Now...
“You’re right about us,” she said quietly, “turning down the heat now will make your leaving more bearable.”
His jaw muscle jumped, but he held her gaze and gave a single, slight nod, not so much agreement as acknowledgment. A sensation of loss clawed at her, and she was suddenly overcome with a frantic sort of angst to explain—to him and to herself.
“I may not be cut out for the fling thing after all. I mean, it’s what I wanted when we started. It’s still what I probably need, considering how I feel about marriage and commitment, and you know, relationships in general, but what just happened, that...exchange of me wanting you and you walking away...”
She shook her head and gave a little shrug. “It was too...familiar in a really ugly way. And, somewhere over the last two months, I guess...I don’t know.” She blew out a breath, frustrated that she couldn’t spit out her words in any sort of comprehendible way. “I just know I care too much about you to keep sleeping with you under that arrangement.”
He nodded again but still didn’t move, and Avery was trying to think of something else to say, some way of explaining her Jekyll-and-Hyde behavior, sure he had to be regretting getting involved with someone so inexperienced, so...naive.
“Me, too.” His words came out rough.
Confused, she shook her head. “You, too, what?”
“I care too much, too. That’s why I didn’t leave.” He dropped his gaze to the floor, flexed and released his fingers from the door frame. “What if we didn’t go cold turkey when the project ends?” He lifted his gaze to hers. “What if we just, you know, let whatever this is run its course? When you decide you want something more, you move on.”
Her heart squeezed, and she huffed a sad laugh. “And what if I decide you’re everything I want? Then where will we be? In even deeper?” She shook her head. “No, I?—”
“I can live with that.”
She dropped her arms and narrowed her eyes, frustration rising. “Live with what? What are you talking about?”
He did that silent jaw-jumping, intent-staring thing again.
She lifted her hands, palms up. “Trace?—”
“I know I should walk away. I know you deserve better. I just...I got to the door, and the thought of going home and fighting through another sleepless night was too much. I’m not ready to let you go. I will if that’s what you want, but...if I’m making decisions based on what I want, I definitely want more of you.”
Her lips parted, but her brain and her heart tumbled into free fall. She couldn’t find or form words.
When she didn’t respond, Trace’s expression took on a spark of hope, and he took his damn sweet time sauntering toward her. “And if you want to keep it a secret to minimize the flak you’ll get from your family, that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be public. We can keep it just between you and me.”
He was standing right in front of her now, less than a foot away. And even though he didn’t reach for her, his eyes flashed with affection and vulnerability.
“Just tell me no, and I’ll be gone.” He lifted his hand to her jaw and cradled her face. His gaze searched her eyes, expectant, hopeful. “Say something, Avery.”
She couldn’t. Her throat had swelled tight, and she had to drag in shaky breaths. Avery fisted her hands in the front of his T-shirt and took a step across the distance separating them, pulling him in.
Their mouths met with a force that made Trace sway, but he immediately wrapped Avery in a fierce hold and opened to her demand with a long, low growl, the sound part passion, part relief.
The kiss took on a life of its own, lips sliding, tongues stroking, filling Avery’s body with pressure. Her mind wiped clear of everything but Trace—the way he held her like he wanted their bodies to fuse, the way they fit, the warmth and strength of him, his taste, his smell.
His shirt was halfway up his chest by the time she realized she was pulling at it. And he broke the kiss for only a second to let the fabric pass over his head. Avery braced herself when he kissed her again, but she still bowed backward over his arm.
She gripped his biceps, slid her hands over his shoulders, wrapped her forearms at his neck. God, she’d never been wanted like this. And now she didn’t know how she’d lived without all this passion in her life for so long.
He broke the kiss, leaned away to grab the hem of her T-shirt, then froze. He was breathing hard, his eyes narrowed. “Is this my shirt?”
Avery stroked her hands over his abdomen and up his chest, then leaned in to press a kiss over his heart. “You left it here, and it now has a very purposeful life as my sleep shirt. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, which means it’s now officially mine.”
His gaze jumped to hers. “I haven’t seen this shirt in over a month.”
She slid her hands around his waist and let them roam over the warm muscles of his back. “What’s your point?”
“You’ve been sleeping in my shirt for a month ?”
Was that bad? Did that signal that she had schoolgirlish romantic fantasies and couldn’t be taken seriously?
Screw it. She was who she was. “Longer. It smells like you.” She pressed another kiss to his chest. “And I have no intension of giving it back, so just write it off now.”
He eased her back by the arms and looked down at her, a faint grin easing the tight line of his mouth. “I have no intension of asking for it back. I love the thought of you sleeping in it.” He gripped the bottom again. “But not tonight.” And he drew it off over her head in one quick pull.
“Tonight,” he said, dropping the shirt to the floor and stroking both hands over her shoulders, down her sides, and up her belly to cup her breasts, “you’re sleeping in nothing but skin. You, me, skin, and sheets. All. Night. Long.”
He bent at the knees, wrapped his arms around her waist, then straightened, carrying her with him. Avery laughed and wrapped her legs around his waist. And when he tilted his head toward hers, she wound her arms around his neck, met his kiss, and sank deep.
The moan that rolled through Trace’s chest gave her gooseflesh. Thick and low, like an animal’s warning growl, it vibrated from his body to hers and trembled in her throat. And when he leaned over the bed to lay her down, Avery reached for the waistband of his jeans. But he eased out of reach, kissing a hot trail down her neck, her chest, pausing to tease her nipples into peaks. His fingers dragged at her panties while his mouth traveled over her stomach and finally, finally covered her pussy.
The rush of excitement burned straight up her body, and she moaned and arched. Trace dug in, eating at her like he’d been starved for weeks. And, sweet Jesus, Avery didn’t have to know anything about oral sex to know the man used his mouth like a god.
She threaded her fingers through his hair as his tongue did things that brought her to the edge of orgasm in seconds. And when she was about ready to fly, he lifted his head, leaving her throbbing, hot, and a little frantic for release.
He was breathing hard as he ran his tongue over his lips with a hum of pleasure. “God, I love the way you taste.” He turned his head and kissed a path along her thigh from her knee toward her pussy. “I love the way you moan.” He turned his head the other way and kissed the opposite leg from her knee to her pussy. “I love the way you lift into my mouth, like you crave the feel of my tongue.” He blew on her, hot and soft, and Avery felt her sex open, felt wetness slide inside her.
With one hand fisted in the sheets, the other in his hair, she propped herself up on an elbow. “Don’t tease me, Trace. I need you.”
Trace pushed to his feet, then eased over her, laying his body on hers. She smiled as she sank into the mattress, then laughed as he rolled to his back, taking her with him. She sat up, straddling his hips, and reached for the waistband of his jeans. But her hair fell into her eyes, and when she lifted a hand to push it out of the way, Trace gripped her waist and lifted her until her thighs flanked his shoulders.
“Show me how badly you need me,” he said, his tone demanding as he gripped her hips and pulled her pussy straight to his open mouth.
Avery gasped at the sensation rocketing through her, and she bowed backward. “Oh my God...”
Her fingers curled around his wrists, holding on as he ate at her pussy the same way he ate at her mouth, creating a frenzy of shock waves.
“Trace, Trace, Trace...” She had no idea why she kept repeating his name, but it tumbled out of her mouth among moans and mewls of ecstasy. Her orgasm rushed forward, and she couldn’t keep her body still. She had to move, had to rock to meet Trace’s mouth until they found the most insanely perfect grind. She’d never felt anything so wickedly good in her entire life. “God...Trace?—”
The orgasm peaked, shuddering through her like an earthquake. She cried out while Trace kept licking and kissing and sucking out two more mini-quakes.
“Oh my God...” She fell forward and rolled to her side, muscles limp, vision blurred.
Trace pushed her to her back and lay half on top of her, half on the bed. He pressed his face between her chin and her shoulder and kissed her there with a rough, “You blow my mind.”
Avery was breathing hard, her head filled with shards of light. She was pretty sure he was the one who’d blown her mind, but she couldn’t get the words out. His mouth traveled lazily over her shoulder before he tilted her face toward him and covered her mouth with his.
But this time his kiss was languid and deep, and even though the rigid, denim-clad line of his cock pressed hard against her thigh, he just sank into the kiss as if he weren’t dying to be exactly where Avery had just come from.
Still floating, she slid one hand over his shoulder, down his arm, his chest, then wedged it between them so she could stroke him. He was so thick and hard, and the way his needy sound rolled from deep in his chest sparked something elemental inside Avery.
But just as she closed her fingers on the tab to his zipper, Trace closed his hand over hers, threaded their fingers, and pressed their joined hands to the bed alongside her head. “Uh-uh,” he murmured, soft and quiet. “Not yet. I just want to be for a while.”
She let her other hand sift through his thick hair. “Be?”
He turned his head and rested it against her chest, his ear over her heart. “Be. Just... be . With you.” He made an inpatient sound in his throat and repositioned his thigh so that his cock wasn’t rubbing against her leg. “I want to touch you. I want to taste you. I want to inhale you. I want to crawl under your skin and nest .”
Avery laughed. “You’re already there, handsome.” She sighed. “Already there.”
They fell into silence. Silence while their breathing returned to normal. Silence while they touched each other. Silence while they lay skin to skin. A comfortable silence. A sweet silence.
“Are you getting up at four again tomorrow?” he finally asked, kissing a path between her breasts.
“Unless I’m given incentive to stay in bed.”
He rolled to his hands and knees and hovered over her, grinning with that sexy little glint in his eye. “I might have the knowledge and the equipment necessary to provide such incentive.”
She slid her free hand down his body and stroked his erection. “I know for a fact you have both.”
He kissed her again, but it was still filled with sweetness and affection, not the passion and lust she was accustomed to, and she had to admit, that threw her off a little.
Pulling back, he broke the kiss and searched her eyes with a serious expression. Thoughts were churning in his head. Avery could see them getting batted back and forth in his eyes.
She lifted her free hand to his face. “What?”
“I just...” He gave a little shake of his head, then murmured in a voice that seemed more for himself than for Avery, “ How in the hell did he let you go?”
Her stomach floated to her throat, and her chest squeezed. Yeah, she was in deep shit with this man. She really needed to check her emotions.
“We were young.” She shrugged. “Stupid. He was fulfilling his family duty to continue the military lines of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather. I was running away from turmoil and loneliness. We weren’t exactly thinking straight.”
He eased his lower body onto hers, twining their legs. “And then?”
“And then?” she repeated, her mind lost in ways to get him out of his jeans.
“You ran away, he joined the military . . . and then . . . ?”
She laughed. “Sounds like we ran away and joined the circus, which I guess would be an accurate description of our life a lot of the time—jumping through hoops, pretending I was someone I wasn’t, feeling like every day was high-wire act, with me waiting for that inevitable day someone showed up at my door to tell me my husband died performing unfathomable acts of folly...or, in his case, heroism.”
Her stomach clenched at the thought, far more of a conditioned response than a current emotion. She shook off those old fears. They didn’t belong to her anymore. They belonged to his fiancée now. And, in all honesty, Avery had a steadfast better-her-than-me attitude about David’s marriage. The failure of their own still ate at her. His betrayal still stung. But she didn’t want that life back. And she didn’t want David back either.
“He was deployed to Syria for his first tour and came back a very different man. We worked at reconnecting, went to counseling, but...Like I said, we were young. He didn’t understand my life. I didn’t understand his. He sucked at talking about it. I sucked at asking the right questions, giving him space, understanding his moods. And when we couldn’t bridge the gap, he started taking longer tours, which pushed a deeper wedge between us. He’d come home for a month or two even more distant, more complicated. We’d grow that much further apart. It was a lousy downward spiral.”
Trace pulled a pillow under her head, pressed a hand to her chest, and rested his chin there. “Why didn’t you leave sooner?”
“Because we were married ,” she said with a what-kind-of-question-is-that laugh. “I didn’t get married just to hang around for the good stuff. I was in it until death did we part. I went into it committed five hundred percent.” She shrugged. “But you can’t force someone to love you enough to stay and fight.”
“You stayed and fought for eight years?”
“Eight very long, very painful, very lonely years.”
“I’m sorry.” His thumb skimmed her cheek, his gaze distant. “I can understand why you’re not interested in commitment.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Delaney said you were engaged once.”
His lips kicked up on one side, but the smile wasn’t humorous or even sweetly melancholy. It was jaded. Very jaded. “Yeah, well, my fiancée was about as committed as your husband. The second a whiff of trouble came my way, she bailed.”
Avery offered a sympathetic hum. She and Trace were kindred spirits in a lot of hidden ways. “Because of prison?”
“Well before that fully played out. She didn’t wait to hear whether or not I received a prison sentence.” His lips tightened and his brow pulled, creating a V of wrinkles between his beautiful, bright eyes. “About prison...” His gaze lifted to hers. “Is there anything you want to ask me?”
“That’s sort of a strange question.” Concern pulled at her lingering euphoria, and she pushed a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck the way he liked.
“You’ve never asked, and everyone’s curious. Most more in a morbid way than a hey-what-was-that-like way. Sort of like they’re looking for that shadow it left on my soul.” His gaze held hers pointedly. “Do you wonder?”
“I know we didn’t meet that long ago, and our pasts have been very different, but in a lot of ways I know you better now than I ever knew David. I feel like we understand each other. Like we’re on the same page. So, no, I don’t wonder.”
The lines around his mouth and etched into his forehead faded, and he seemed to breathe easier. And the look in his eyes...It made it hard to breathe. A soft, deeply affectionate, foundation-altering look she’d once seen in David’s eyes so very long ago, back when he’d still loved her.
“You’re so”—he shook his head—“so, I don’t know, wise or something. So mature for your age. Every twenty-five-year-old woman I know is worried about her nail polish and wants to talk about shopping.”
Avery laughed, long and hard. “You make it sound downright revolting. Those are important things to most normal twenty-five-year-old women. I’m not normal. I had to grow up fast when my mom left and my dad got lost in a bottle. Then Delaney took the low road out of town. And getting married sure didn’t solve anything. I ended up taking care of everything while David was gone—the bills, the house.” She sighed. “I think I skipped from sixteen to thirty.”
She threaded both hands into his hair and smiled. “Why are we talking about this crap when I could show you what I learned on the Internet?” She lifted her feet to his hips and tried to push his jeans down. “But you have to get out of these first.”
“Internet?” he asked with a laugh. “Were you surfing porn when you should have been making truffles?”
“I wasn’t surfing porn.” Her tone came out appropriately chastising. “It was soft porn. And it was for educational purposes.”
That made Trace burst out laughing. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his back. With his knees bent, clasping Avery’s hips between his, he said, “Don’t you worry, Cupcake—I’m going to want to experience every single thing you found interesting.” He pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear, and the sweet move softened her heart a little more. “But I get so little time with you alone, I want to just soak you in. Besides, I haven’t figured out what makes you tick yet.”
She stroked his jaw. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime...” She wiggled out of his vise and scooted down until she could reach his waistband, where she finished unfastening his pants. “I have some playtime on my mind.”